Leaving AT&T Wireless for a Verizon iPhone 5

I imagine that headline sums up a pretty common course of action these days.

I just dropped AT&T wireless, after 6 years of iPhone fun.

Things had gotten a bit better following our move to the suburbs. Back in Chicago's Bucktown neighborhood, it was common to have no service whatsoever. AT&T explained that a cell tower had completely failed in our neighborhood, creating a "dead zone", and that there were no current concrete plans to repair it.

And still, they offered no solutions whatsoever. No microcell, no equipment swap, no SIM replacement, nothing. Basically, a "deal with it" stance. Which is their prerogative.

And now, in the suburbs, my frustration with the dropped calls and total lack of service had just reached the boiling point. I had an iPhone 4, which was an awesome phone, except for the fact that during literally every call I made, my voice would drop out entirely, and the person on the other side would say "hello? hello?" as I frantically tried to talk to them.

This happened during a call with a job recruiter. 5 times in a row.

All while my current work phone - an iPhone 4S running on Verizon - remains rock-solid with full bars. Were it not for the obvious "comparison phone", I may have stayed with AT&T.

But you can't expect a customer to spend all day looking at 2 iPhones on his desk, one of which is at 1-2 bars or "SEARCHING" for a network, the other with 5 bars - and to stick around. I don't live in the sticks - I live in a pretty nice suburb about 10 miles away from one of the biggest metro areas on the planet. What gives, AT&T?

I went to Best Buy for a $150 iPhone 5 the next day, and got $230 for my iPhone 4 on eBay. So far, so good.

Except for the fact that my wife's contract has 6 months to go with AT&T, so we're not able to use a family plan, and we're paying two providers, almost $60 extra each month in total.

But that's a price I'm willing to pay. AT&T was simply making me look unprofessional. I can't have that.

(Ironically, when I called AT&T to discuss paying a fee and breaking my wife's contract to move HER to Verizon, they went into "customer retention mode" and offered us both a free iPhone 4S if we'd stick around. Too late! I'm already on a 2-year contract with your competitor. Should have thought of that 3 months ago.)